Walking Ollie

by Stephen Foster

  It’s during Mingus’s first stay over, while walking out in the pouring rain for the fourth time in two days, that the principal life-changing aspect of caring for a dog really comes home: a dog demands a frequent workout. If a proper dog (goodbye dear Chihuahua owner, but I fear this is not the book for you) does not exert itself twice daily, it will become an unseemly tub of tripe. A tour round the block will not do. The animal needs a run – ergo the single most alarming aspect of dog ownership: you are forced into direct contact with nature.

  For myself, even without a dog, I take my exercise. I am forty-odd, and have reached a typical forty-odd condition whereby the endorphin-kick of aerobic exertion has almost eclipsed my addiction to nicotine. But of course I do not walk to the gym, squash court, five-a-side pitch or swimming pool. Exercise is its own end, it is not for getting from A to B. That is why I have a nice car.

  Mingus

  Mingus visits are, then, the only times I find myself with my feet on the actual ground, walking (anaerobic, worthless, endorphin-kick-free exercise) in those messy woodlands, commons and meadows (without a dog I can see no reason why a human should ever need to be in a meadow) with which I would normally have no acquaintance. These areas are simply the green backgrounds that I fail to notice through the window of the nice car as I drive past them. Though I sometimes jog around a sports field, a sports field is too cultivated and flat and tidy to fit the description ‘nature’. Nature has long grass, is unstructured, often slippery underfoot, and has insects and small animals living in it; it’s an environment about which I could not care less: verdant, necessary to life and so on, but about as thrilling as a Methodist sermon.

  I was sent to Methodist church when I was a young boy growing up in the soot-coated city of Stoke-on-Trent. Not because we are religious, but because that was where your parents sent you on a Sunday so that they could have some peace and quiet. After the thrilling sermon there was the thrilling Sunday School lesson. Occasionally, Sunday School trips to the countryside were organised in order that we might take fresh air, cleanse our souls, and learn to identify flora and fauna by name. I would hang at the back of these excursions in a cloud, wishing I was a Catholic. I had no interest in being able to identify flora and fauna by name and this has never changed; my inner Christian scholar is more than satisfied by knowing a great deal more about football than is necessary, and by attempting to interpret information regarding the form of horses.

  But as a consequence of having Mingus around, by liking being with him, by hosting him as he spread his largesse into the world, I began to discover that, when it came down to it, I didn’t actively mind, all that much, walking in nature. I remain immune to specific knowledge of bird variety, but I like their songs. As the trees change in time with the seasons, I’m struck by the shifting sculpture of the landscape. When the sun comes out after the rain, I like the smell. In the right mood I even like the rain itself. In short, it’s not as bad as I remembered it.

  There is something I mind, though, and I mind it a lot. It is the inescapable, extra awful aspect of Mingus and every other member of his species: he, and they, will shamelessly relieve their bowls wherever they like. I despise dealing with turds. Crouching to ‘pick-up’ is not a job for a man. It is fresh turd, too, remember, it is at its most stinking. And you can count yourself lucky if it’s a fresh stinking log or three, which is at least manageable, and not a fresh stinking pile, which isn’t. You sheath yourself from excrement-direct-to-flesh contact only by the gauge of a plastic bag as you lean forward to gather the stuff, while simultaneously and instinctively leaning back, away from the stench. You could not patent a more perfect method for putting your back out; here is the reason why many a dog owner walks with a stoop.

  You could use a pooper scooper of course, which would give you the benefit of a little distance, but after using it you would be carrying a shitty spade about. For me this is a significant design flaw. They could invent a disposable pooper scooper, I suppose, but as you are already holding a bagged-up turd for which you can find no bin, where would you get rid of the disposable pooper scooper?

  As a matter of nasal self-preservation you develop tactics to avoid picking up. A ‘Do Nots’ list accumulates in your mind. Do not walk him on a pavement with a narrow greensward alongside it that he will only regard as a crapoir. Do not take him across the road at the traffic lights, so he can demonstrate his dumping skills to motorists stopped on red. Do not tie him up outside a newsagent’s. Do not take a short cut through a supermarket carpark. Do not take him to a Piazza, a square, or a shopping mall. Never walk him through a town centre.

  Instead, encourage him to poo in the garden before he leaves the house. Pointless, he will refuse to do that as it would be unhygienic to go to the toilet in his own personal space. He will regard you curiously, wondering how he has managed to get himself involved with a human as dim as you are. The expression on his face will say, ‘No, not here; how many times do we have to go through this?’

  If you are going to become a long-term dog person, here is the way to deal with defecation: first thing in the morning launch the animal into the back of the car (trade in the nice sports coupé while it’s still got some residual value, it’s a battered estate you’re looking for). Drive the battered estate to a copse – an especially overgrown part of nature: a meadow with trees and bushes. Park as near to the copse as possible and let him directly into it.

  Using this method, his bottom’s first prolonged contact with the chilly air that unfailingly provokes the turd (unless he’s in his own garden, of course), will take place in an area where you can leave it behind. This may represent a violation of a by-law, but there is fox, rabbit, vole and mouse shit in there as well, so, like the foxes, rabbits, voles and mice that went before him, you can feel free to abandon the evil item. Like a person who has just silently farted, you can move along on your way with a more or less clear conscience.

  Meanwhile, what remains behind can be assumed to provide a fertile, manure-type base in which further examples of nature can flourish. In this manner, instead of engaging yourself in odious and demeaning pooper-scooper activity, you have instead become part of a virtuous life-cycle. After the poo(s) (there may be more than one) and the lovely walk in nature, back home in the warm kitchen, Mingus will look at you adoringly with his head tipped to one side. This is because you are holding a pork pie. For the price of half of it he will love you. For the price of the other half he will protect you from attack and lay down his life in defence of yours.

  It was through knowing, and liking, Mingus that I was able to begin to think of myself as a person who might have a part-share in a dog.

  And so it was, on the snowy winter afternoon, that I found myself at a re-homing kennels considering the idea that a pair of Deerhounds the size of donkeys might come to live in our house.

  ERNIE

  We make the journey to the National Canine Defence League (NCDL) dogs’ home at Snetterton, in Norfolk, with the intention of looking for a retired greyhound. Helping a sporting refugee would be an act of kindness that would also provide Trezza with the opportunity to enjoy a little light walk everyday. Her sedentary occupation as a writer, and her disdain for the gymnasium and new-fangled faddish ideas of the like, means she doesn’t take much exercise. Moreover, a dog of our own will help her to cope with the melancholies that Mingus’s departures herald. It is me who suggests this. In a sense, the whole dog project is mine.

  There are false starts on the road to Snetterton. We begin by conducting idle conversations about what sort of dog we’d have, if we were to have one. First off, we would not consider a Dalmatian as any other Dalmatian would not be Mingus. Next, we eliminate certain other breeds for being too small, or too big, or too hairy, or too stupid, or too stupid-looking (which is often the same thing), or just the kind of dog we don’t like for no good reason we can explain.

  While queuing for a coffee in a concession within a DIY Superstore one morning, I notice a pile o
f books in an aisle. The book pile is that of a coffee-table title called The Giant Book of the Dog. I browse The Giant Book of the Dog over a cappuccino. It looks as though it could be helpful, and at £4.99 it’s a bargain. At night-time, in bed, I study the pages at length. I come to the conclusion that what we need is a Hungarian Vizsla. The Vizsla is short-haired, slightly taller than average, well-proportioned, and purposeful-looking with a noble bearing and silky ears. If it were a horse the Vizsla’s colour would be described as a chestnut. To me this animal seems to epitomise the essence of what a dog should be.

  Additionally, the notes state that the Vizsla makes a first-class pet and is good with children. Not that we regularly have children about the place, but you’re bound to come across them while you’re out. Whether or not The Giant Book of the Dog is to be entirely trusted in its assessment of breed character/child suitability is a moot point, however, as in my lengthy study I note that there are very few breeds which are not first class pets who are good with children.

  The Hungarian Vizsla is a gundog, developed by Magyar noblemen to pick up game and geese and ducks and so on. We have no need for this in our lives. But then Britain’s most popular breed, the Labrador, or Labrador Retriever (soon, for a time, to become my least favourite), is listed under the same category. These classifications are surely meaningless, I think, when it’s a pet you’re looking for: like the people who carry the Labrador to the DIY Superstore in the four-wheel SUV, the animal within is no more likely to be put to its use than the bull-bars welded to the front of their vehicle.

  This could be why so many Labrador retrievers are fatter than their irritating owners, but this is a subject for ranting about later, once I have an animal of my own, when I have experience, when I have formed views. Back then, lying in bed looking at the pictures of all the child-friendly dogs, I knew nothing, and it was in this happy state that we visited a specialist Vizsla lady whose bitch was carrying a litter.

  The lady lived near Reading, a hundred and seventy miles away. I found her through the Vizsla Society who have a website, as do practically all breeds. I phoned the Society, and was put through to the Puppy Secretary who advised that the Reading specialist had a litter on the way. Good news, but first of all I put my most pressing concern to the Puppy Secretary: I asked if Vizslas were nice to stroke; I had read on the website that their coat was ‘oily’ and I did not like the idea of this.

  ‘Think of velvet,’ she said, ‘it’s rather like that.’ Velvetiness sounded altogether different, a huge improvement on oiliness, and set my mind at rest concerning the matter of coat-feel. I could tell by the her tone, though, that the question I’d asked gave the game away just as effectively as commenting on the colour of a second-hand car does if you’re a female buyer.

  Reading in Berkshire is not near to Norwich in Norfolk, but we could at least tie-in a viewing (of the mother, not the puppy itself, which was not yet born, this was how the matter was to proceed) with a football match or a race meeting.

  We arrived at the Vizsla lady’s house and met her two Vizslas – the pregnant mother, and the grandmother-in-waiting. I already knew a good deal about these animals because the telephone call to arrange the visit had lasted for over an hour. The dogs were bouncy and enthusiastic in their welcome: I don’t like being licked on the face, I find it a bit much coming from a creature which, though it won’t go to the toilet in its own garden, will do more or less anything else that is unspeakable.

  The expression ‘the dog’s bollocks’, for example, is entirely obvious in its origination, and as I came to spend more time in their company, I noted that dogs rule out absolutely nothing (with the exception of oranges) in terms of what they might put in their mouths – the first time I saw Ollie nibbling at a pile of horse manure I was appalled, though not as much as when I first caught him trying out his own vomit as a between-meals snack.

  My initial impression was that the Vizslas didn’t look all that much like the picture in The Giant Book of the Dog. To begin with, they were smaller and slighter. This was because they were bitches, not dogs. I had read about this difference regarding size-relative-to-gender, determined by the highest point at withers (shoulders), but I had not seen it in real life until now; in fact, this was the first time I’d seen a Vizsla in real life at all. They were a different shade to the picture too, more dun. I looked at them like I would look at a rare animal in a zoo; I found them fascinating, and beautiful, and slightly unnerving all at once, and equally out of keeping with their environment. They lived in a very tidy, small modern house in a cul-de-sac.

  After we had made friends with ‘the girls’(we were given treats to feed to them), we all went out for a walk in nearby woods, a walk which lasted for a good hour and a half. This struck me as pretty stiff, not to mention a huge amount of time to be blowing on anaerobic exercise.

  During the walk we were quizzed about our home, our surroundings, our backgrounds and our lifestyle. Trezza is a regular smoker, but I knew for certain she would not be mentioning this, nor lighting up, during the critical period of scrutiny. The Vizsla lady was interviewing us to see that we were fit people to own a dog from her lineage; it went without saying that an environment that endorsed passive smoking would be unsuitable. Occasional asides were made about the girls themselves who disappeared in and out of the bushes and trees, though never too far out of sight. They were well behaved, if not a little reserved. They cantered very stylishly as each had an excellent ‘hip-score’. I considered pretending that I knew what this meant, but curiosity got the better of me.

  Hip-scoring is to do with the way in which the ball joints at the top of the hind legs sit in the pelvic girdle, and the knock-on effect this has on leg-alignment and associated matters. Vets can issue hip-score ratings according to how much fractional deviation the hind legs display compared against an ideal norm. A low hip-score is the one to have if you intend to show your dog; otherwise it’s of little consequence unless it’s so far out that the dog is bandy, but I guess you’d notice that yourself without the need for the hip-score.

  While I was learning about this I picked up a stick, a broken branch, which I made to throw for these girls with great hips. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the lady freeze.

  ‘Do they chase sticks?’ I asked, arm cocked, stick unthrown.

  ‘It can be a little dangerous,’ she replied, ‘If they catch them in their throats, you know, they could choke, or do untold other damage.’

  We walked on, and, when the girls were not looking, I quietly abandoned the hazard. Although I hadn’t actually hurled it – and imagine if my aim had been off – I wondered how badly the suggestion would count against us. The lady helped ease the atmosphere by saying a ball might be all right, in a nice big field, or similar. I mentioned that Norwich was near to the coast, which would be lovely for walking and for throwing a ball for a puppy to fetch. This sounded good. I remembered that we both work from home so the little animal would have company all day long. This sounded good, too. I watched the girls closely now. I was much taken with the way they moved in and out of the trees; they were athletes. Their owner began making various toots on her whistle to which the girls did, or sometimes did not, respond, according to whether or not they had a scent, but their behaviour was generally exemplary – at the end of their walk they stopped well short of the road to have their leads put on, and over in the carpark they made graceful jumps into the back of the car.

  Returning to the house, we watched as the Vizsla lady washed and dried the dog’s paws and ‘little bellies’ in a bucket outside the front door, before they were allowed back inside. I glanced around hoping nobody would see me taking part in this activity, and in so doing I glanced at Trezza. Trezza had visited dog breeders before, when she was finding Mingus. My glance said, ‘This isn’t normal, surely?’ Her return glance confirmed that it wasn’t.

  In the kitchen the girls were fed individual diets of hypo-allergenic food; I was unsurprised to learn that, even given this d
iet, one of them was a faddy eater. We had not been into the kitchen before the walk. The walls were obliterated by rosettes, medallions and certificates, which the girls had won at shows all over the country.

  Crufts was mentioned. A Vizsla notepad on the fridge was secured by a Vizsla fridge magnet. I should know better, because, at a price, anything is available in the world, but I was astonished that such accessories existed. I studied a certificate. It was for first prize. I studied another certificate. That was for first prize, too. I hadn’t realised that we’d been walking with aristocrats – I thought they were just pedigree. It appeared that this pair were even posher than Mingus.

  ‘Tea?’ said the lady. While the kettle was boiling, she talked to the girls and explained their differing characteristics and special ways to them for our benefit, a history which was interspersed with some bitter asides concerning her ex-partner.

  Together with our tray of drinks and the biscuit tin, we rejoined the animals who had heard enough about themselves and had withdrawn to curl up in their separate baskets in the lounge. I fed one of them a piece of digestive before I’d had time to think better of it but the lady didn’t seem to mind, she was more relaxed now she had taken her exercise and her girls were safely back home unharmed with clean paws and bellies, and that the visitors seemed to approve of the family. Finally, after a further half-hour of Vizsla stories, we excused ourselves from the viewing.

  We had arrived nearly four hours earlier, not long after lunch. It was now officially time for a drink. But first things first. We drove round the corner and I stopped the car so that Trezza could get out and have a fag, and I even had one myself. As I rolled it I conjured a picture of the lady’s ex, and considered how difficult it must have been for him to compete with the girls. Would that be my fate if we went through with this? Hopefully not, because there was a specific question that I needed to raise right away: